


you’re holding onto what you’ve never had

by SpearWorks



Series: we were written as tragedies (but the climax has already passed) [1]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: I guess this is more of a character study than anything, Post-Canon, and more about how they were victims too, but less about who they were, there is focus on the pregame characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:20:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpearWorks/pseuds/SpearWorks
Summary: In the end, which is more tragic?The people who were created to die, or those before them that didn’t hesitate to sign away their lives?
Series: we were written as tragedies (but the climax has already passed) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2187555
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	you’re holding onto what you’ve never had

Shuichi wonders if there was anyone that missed who they used to be.

The participants of Danganronpa were immortalized by the show that killed them, but what about the broken, tired, and _desperate_ kids who signed their lives away for nothing else than a chance to be something _more?_

He used to hate the grinning boy that showed up on his audition tape. The boy that was sadistic, who decided that his suffering would be a suitable gift for the world.

Now there is nothing but curiosity, and perhaps just a bit of pity. The truth is that for the boy, there was no one worth staying alive for. Not for any of them. They were only teenagers, but they decided that dying was worth whatever they got out of Danganronpa.

_(Sometime after escaping the prison academy, the three survivors had asked for the audition tapes of those that were turned into their friends, so Shuichi knows exactly what people got out of Danganronpa._

_For some, it was simple—money for a sick sibling or a struggling orphanage. For others, it was much more complicated—a chance to protect someone, or an opportunity to become a loved one; neither seemed to care that it was all prewritten._

_But the point is, everyone got something._

_That’s what made Danganronpa so dangerous)._

He knows that the people who lived and bled with him are missed. He sees that when Maki spends nights outside in the freezing cold, stargazing even though she can never place the constellations. He sees that when Himiko wanders off to churches and dojos, almost never participating, but lingering as if she was waiting for someone who wasn’t coming.

_(He sees that when he falls asleep on top of a piano that he doesn’t even know how to play, because the presence is a comfort, but anything more is just too much for him to handle)._

However, what about the kids in school uniforms who fell in love with the idea of being rewritten?

Shuichi has never heard from the family of his past life. None of them have. He wasn’t even sure if they were allowed to contact him until he asked the Danganronpa staff after one of those mandatory medical check-ups.

 _Of course,_ the man had answered, _but don’t expect it, they rarely do._

Honestly, Shuichi was relieved. 

He has no intentions of pretending that he is anything but the ultimate detective that ended the killing games. Falsified memories or not, that’s who he is.

Still, there’s something to be said about how it’s possible to completely wipe someone’s existence from the world while they’re technically still breathing.

Tsumugi had taunted them with the fact that they weren’t real, but reality turned a seventeen year old with an internship into a monster. 

_(Then again, fiction created monsters too, but those ones were crafted carefully by hands that weren’t their own. He’s not sure if that makes it better or worse)._

It’s all relative in the end.

What’s the difference between the truth and a lie that you cannot disprove?

There’s nothing fake in how Himiko silently shakes when she cries or in how Maki goes quiet for days at a time. There’s nothing fake with something _so human._

_(There was nothing fake in Kirumi’s determination, or Gonta’s kindness, or Ryoma’s sadness. To say anything different would be an insult to all of their memories)._

Though, he supposes that the people who once used their bodies were just as human. Shuichi has a feeling that there was more than what he saw on the surface.

He’ll never know though.

Danganronpa ensured that.

In the very same way, they ensured that nobody killed by their actions would be mourned. Not like the actual people that they were.

The majority of the world still considers the contestants who died on Danganronpa to be nothing more than fictional characters. Empty shells that were given life for the sole purpose of bringing entertainment.

As for the teenagers that gave up their lives for the show?

They don’t even get the mockery of mourning that the fans of the series seem to give his friends.

No one will miss them, and that’s probably what Danganronpa intended.

_(They likely knew that too, when they signed their own death warrants. Maybe that’s why so many of their wishes involved being made into someone memorable)._

So, Shuichi stands in a graveyard, because grieving is all he has left to offer to the dead _(to those he knew, and to those he never got the chance to)._

It’s not enough, but they at least deserve that much.


End file.
